Singular, collective and automated creation of a media guide for online content

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided in which a content guide includes one or more tags associated with a single user, a group of users or a channel subscribed to by users that enables the retrieval of content for subsequent viewing and which can be supplemented by recommendations and data from other sources.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The current application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/938,100 filed Jul. 9, 2013, entitled “Singular, Collectiveand Automated Creation of a Media Guide for Online Content”, which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/684,002 filed Jan.7, 2010, entitled “Singular, Collective and Automated Creation of aMedia Guide for Online Content”, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/143,114, filed Jan. 7, 2009. Theentire disclosures of U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 13/938,100,12/684,002 and 61/143,114 are hereby incorporated by reference as if setforth in full herein.

BACKGROUND

The present invention generally relates to digital content distributionsystems and in particular to media content systems that generates,distributes and uses media content guides.

The availability of Internet content has dramatically reshaped thelandscape for how a user acquires, interacts with, and ultimatelyconsumes content. Numerous websites today host audio and video programs,ranging from user-generated videos, news-reports and podcasts, toprime-time and syndicated full-length television shows and movies inhigh definition. The number of these offerings through differentInternet portals is ever expanding, with each website pursuing adifferent business model in an effort to monetize their contentoffering.

Therefore, there has become a need to identify, maintain and distributecontent that maximizes the consumption and display of such content aswell as provide efficient distribution of such content.

SUMMARY

Generally, guide creation, access and distribution content systems andmethods are provided. In one embodiment, a content guide system isprovided. The system comprises a content server, a tag server, a taggingdevice and a playback device. The content server is configured toprovide access to content. The tag server includes a searchable databaseof tags. The tagging device is in network communication with the tagserver and the content server, where the tagging device is configured toaccess content via the content server and to automatically generate atleast one tag referencing the accessed content that is provided to thetag server for inclusion into the searchable database of tags. Theplayback device is in network communication with the tag server and thecontent server, where the playback device is configured to search thedatabase; retrieve, from the database, a tag that references contentaccessible via the content server and access the content referenced bythe retrieved tag via the content server.

In various embodiments, each tag includes an identifier of the contentand location information of the content where the identifier is a uniquedatabase identifier and the location information is associated to auniform resource identifier. In other embodiments, the identifier andthe location information is substantially smaller in size than thecontent. In one embodiment, the tags do not include a temporal componentthat describes or references a particular time or date in which thecontent is available for consumption. In other embodiments, the tags area subset of data within a database having data unrelated to the tags andthe content in which the tags refer. In another embodiment, the tagsinclude at least one identifier associating the tags to a specificcontent guide within the database and in a further embodiment thedatabase is larger in size than the database of tags.

In another embodiment, a method of accessing content distributedthroughout a network is provided. The method comprises generating a tagreferencing a piece of content accessible via a content server using atagging device; adding the generated tags to a searchable database oftags by a tag server; and accessing the database, selecting at least onetag and retrieving content from the content server referenced by theretrieved tag by a playback device.

Many of the attendant features of the present invention will be morereadily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by referenceto the foregoing and following description and considered in connectionwith the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an overview guide generation andutilization process in accordance with various embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a guide creation, access and distributionmultimedia system in accordance with various embodiments of the presentinvention.

FIG. 3 is a graphical representation of tagging content in accordancewith various embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a graphical representation of tagging content in accordancewith various embodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With an expanding selection of content from differing Internet portals,a content guide in accordance with an embodiment of the inventionprovides a tool for navigating the plethora of the available content.The content guide in one embodiment is a queue or database of tagsassociated with a single user, a group of users or a channel subscribedto by users that enables the retrieval of content for sequential and/orsubsequent viewing and in other embodiments is a navigable listing oftags referencing content that can enables access to content viasearching, and/or categorized directories and which is supplemented byrecommendations and data from third party sources. A guide in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention can be created by a user while he orshe navigates different portals using a browser that includes plug-insoftware, javascript or another similar interface enabling the user tomark different audio or video content for later viewing. These tags canbe saved locally or on a network account and subsequently accessedthrough a web browser or by another application on a personal computeror a consumer electronics device capable of accessing those tags andpresenting the selected content on a platform such as a digitaltelevision. In many embodiments, the decoding of the content isperformed by the device using the guide to access content. The guidesimplifies the retrieval of content across a large number of sites andenables viewing of content on multiple devices.

In accordance with various embodiments of the invention, the mediacontent guide enables sharing of tagged content within an onlinecommunity, and the formation of collections of tags based on thecommunity's recommendations. The community's tags can also be coupledwith an individual's preferences to create recommendations for onlinecontent consumption. In addition, a user's personal preferences may beused by a remote or recommendation server which scans existing and newlyadded content, such that recommendations can be created for the user ona periodic basis.

Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the inventioncreate a set of tags or markers related to content on the Internet ornetwork along with any related information. The tags form a media guidethat is ready for subsequent recollection and use by an individual toaccess and play the encompassed content. This media guide can be createdin many ways, such as individual interaction, cooperation of a communityof users, or through an automated system tailored to each individual'sor community's preferences. The information gathered on the individualor collective content-consumption habits can be subsequently used todevelop additional content and/or goods and services offerings forspecific users or classes of users.

Program directories, libraries or guides in accordance with embodimentsof the invention are constructed in several distinct parts, thecollection of which aid in the creation of a guide for accessing onlinecontent on a personal computer, mobile phone, or a consumer electronicsdevice. In various embodiments, as shown in FIG. 1, the process occursat two distinct steps: The creation of the guide, where a distinct setof content have been selected (3), and the utilization of the guide foraccessing the selected content playback (5). The term content is usedherein to refer to any audio, video, image, or multimedia files orpresentations which can be either downloaded or consumed directly via aweb-browser or other application for viewing media content, plus anydata describing those presentation or files (e.g., metadata).

Turning now FIG. 2 in which a conceptual system drawing of the contentguide system is shown. Content is distributed throughout a network 2.The network 2 can be the Internet, one or more wide area networks, oneor more local area networks or any combination thereof. Within and/orcoupled to the network are one or more servers 4, e.g., web servers,media servers, and similar devices or services 6, such as messagingservices, microblogs, feed systems or other similar systems, that are incontrol or at least able to access content distributed in the network.In various embodiments, servers or services can be separated ordistinguished as content servers that provide access and/or containcontent, tag servers that provide one or more searchable databases oftags referencing the content or a combination of both. Playback devices8, such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, media players, andvarious other devices capable of playing back and displaying thecontent, are also included within and/or coupled to the network. Taggingdevices are also included with or separately from the playback devicesin which the tagging devices are capable of tagging the content. One ormore searchable tag databases or guides are created and storedthroughout the network to provide quick and universal access to thecontent by the playback devices and through the server and/or services.It should be appreciated that playback devices as described throughoutthe description can in various embodiments also refer to tagging devicesand servers or services to content and/or tag servers or services.

It should also be appreciated that in creating the media guide, onlymarkers and/or a limited set of information about or referring to thecontent are utilized, and the actual content in its entirety is not usedin making the guide. Information related to the content may include butis not limited to: its title, creation time, genre, creator, static oranimated thumbnails, and optionally a subset of the content provided inits original format or transformed into a different format.

Guide Creation

The user may individually traverse any site which offers content and addaccess markers for that content to a database which is later used forcreating the guide. In a number of embodiments, the user accesses thesites using a browser application that includes a plug-in or through aJavaScript, which provides the functionality of identifying mediaembedded within the webpage, providing a user interface enabling thetagging/untagging of media and extracting information related to themedia from the web page. When marking the individual contents on a webportal, the page which presents that content and information related toit for consumption or downloading it may be dynamically augmented topresent an interface which then enables the addition of that content tothe user's media guide. Once added, the web page may be dynamicallyaugmented to note that the content has been added to the user's mediaguide. When revisiting the same web page, the user may be allowed toremove content that has already been added to his or her media guide.

FIG. 3 provides an example of a web-page 50 where media may be presentedto a user. Here, we see that the original page may be augmented topresent the user with an option to add the content to their media queue51 via augmentation of the original webpage. Where content has alreadybeen added to the database, the user may be presented with an option toremove the content from their media database or queue 52. In severalembodiments, the browser plug-in or JavaScript can also communicate theinformation to a remote device such as a server that maintains a contentguide on behalf of the user. FIG. 4 illustrates another example oftagging content 60 via a messaging service. As shown, a browser plug-inor JavaScript in accordance with an embodiment of the invention hasautomatically pre-filled the tweet or message 61 providing such amessage as “I'm watching # [video hash tag] with # divxweb[shortenedURL]”. The shortened URL is generated using a URL shortening service toprovide the location of the content, which is typically a differentidentifier to that of a web page in which the content is embedded, andthe video hash tag (#divxweb) is provided as an embedded code parameterto identify the content, both of which are not be editable by the user.In one embodiment, the hash tag is generated from information related tothe content, e.g., utilizing the filename, metadata and other similarcontent identifiers. Although a specific short message format is shownin FIG. 4, alternate messages appropriate to an application can also beutilized in accordance with embodiments of the invention. In variousembodiments, an interface is provided to mark content that may beunplayable using with the playback device or player to be subsequentlyplayed on another device capable of playing the content. For example, amobile phone searching or browsing a website through a javascript cantag content, such as a user can input an e-mail address through whichthe tagged content can be shared or marked to be added to the mediaguide. The content can then be accessed later via the guide or e-mail ona computer or similar device that is capable or better suited forplaying the tagged content.

In one embodiment, the user may choose to share his or her media guidewith other people via any electronic means such as email or as part of aservice offered by a social group website, an online community, or anapplication that aggregates messages based upon identifiers includingbut not limited to hash tags. Tags can be shared by direct upload to theservers of the social group website via an API or can be shared byuploading to media guide server that then provides tagged contentinformation from users to the servers of the social group website via anAPI. During the process of sharing, the user may recommend particularselections from the media guide, or alternatively share the entire guidewith other members of his/her electronic community. Likewise, the usermay receive recommendations or complete guides from his/her onlinecommunity, with or without sharing any of his/her guide information. Asa result, a media guide may be built upon the recommendations of membersof an online community and filtered based on a set of predeterminedmetrics selected by the user or otherwise determined algorithmically bytaking in metrics such as the user's demographics, the contents ofhis/her personal media guide, etc.

A service in one embodiment offers each individual customizationcapabilities based on his or her preferences or based on the content oftheir personal or collective media guide. Alternatively, separate guidesmay be available for access by users based on preset categories whichgroups like content together based on specific characteristics such asgenre, type, production year, subject, etc. A list of web portals may beprocessed in an automated fashion in part or whole and content markersadded to the user's media guide and/or a general guide. Again, thismedia guide may be populated by a set of predetermined metrics selectedby the user or otherwise determined algorithmically by taking in metricssuch as the user's demographics, the contents of his/her personal andcollective media guides, etc. This service may operate on a remoteserver, on a user's computing platform, or a combination thereof.

In one embodiment parts of the system are configurable to access new webportals chosen by the user through an augmentation of the catalogingprocess used by the service. This augmentation may be added throughadditional instructions presented in the form of a platform-independentinterpreted language, or through the addition of object and binary codeto the original software of the service. The instructions supportingthis augmentation can come from a third party source or the originaldistributor of the service, or a combination thereof.

The media guide may be created locally on storage media associated withthe user's computing platform, or alternatively created on storage mediaassociated with a remote server which can be accessed by the user. Whenan automated service or server is creating the guide, the serviceaccesses the user's media guide on a predetermined storage media.Regardless of the location of the media guide, the playback devicepossesses the capability of accessing the media guide such that it canpresent the user with the media guide and allow the user to view part orall elements of the guide and select the consumption of content throughthe markers or tags which are available in the guide. In a number ofembodiments, the guide is resident on a first device that is accessibleover a local network via a second device. In various embodiments, theguide is resident on a server that is accessible over the Internet via aviewing device. In both instances, the device accessing the guide usesthe tags within the guide to retrieve the content corresponding tospecific tags via the Internet.

Content Access

The creation of the guide and access to the guide are typically separatein time, and may be composed in separate locations and on differentdevice categories. During a time gap, a pre-caching of content can takeplace. For example, some or all of the tagged content can beprogressively downloaded onto local storage which is accessible by theplayback device and/or to direct the pre-caching (manually orintelligently) to the appropriate or desired device in an ecosystemwhere a user has multiple devices capable of accessing the guide. Whereapplicable (such as the case of popular content), the use ofpeer-to-peer technologies may be used to reduce the bandwidth load onthe originating content server. These provisions may not be necessaryfor a basic usage of the media guide which is the direct streaming ofcontent based on the content marker tags of the media guide.

The creation of a media guide can provide certain information about auser's viewing preferences and the types of content that they like toplayback. The information about the content can be shared with anoutside server and monetized in many different fashions. Based onadditional information available in the media guide, it may also bepossible to identify content that has been cataloged from legitimatesources that have contracts with the copyright owner versus those whichare delivered from an illegitimate source. This identification can leadto monetization models such as advertisement, directed advertisement,offers for sale or acquisition of license to consume the content, or anyother monetization techniques that can utilize information regarding thelegitimacy of the delivery source of the media.

Some or all of the software and system required for the creation of themedia guide may be implemented in a fashion that it can be licensed by3^(rd) parties as a standard development kit (SDK) and subsequentlycustomized by the 3^(rd) party licensor based on their specificrequirements. In such a model, certain information that can be used formonetization such as the user's viewing preferences and the types ofcontent that they like to playback along with additional informationavailable in the media guide may be reported exclusively back to thelicensee of the SDK, or shared mutually between the 3^(rd) partylicensor and the licensee of the SDK.

Although the present invention has been described in certain specificaspects, many additional modifications and variations would be apparentto those skilled in the art. It is therefore to be understood that thepresent invention may be practiced otherwise than specificallydescribed, including various changes in the size, shape and materials,without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.Thus, embodiments of the present invention should be considered in allrespects as illustrative and not restrictive.

What is claimed:
 1. A content system comprising: a first server directedto provide access to pieces of content through a network; a secondserver directed to maintain a searchable database of tags that describecontent stored on the first server; a first device in communication withthe first server and the second server through the network, wherein thefirst device is directed to: automatically generate a message describinga piece of content accessible through the first server, wherein themessage comprises a tag describing the piece of content and a URL thatreferences a location of the piece of content; provide the generated tagdescribing the piece of content with the URL that addresses the locationof the piece of content to the second server; a second device incommunication with the first server and the second server through thenetwork wherein the second device is directed to: provide a search queryto the second server; receive search results including the tag thatdescribes the piece of content and the URL referencing the location ofthe piece of content from the searchable database of tags maintained bythe second server; and retrieve and play back the piece of content fromthe first server using the URL referencing the location of the piece ofcontent.
 2. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second serverfurther maintains content guides for different communities of usersbased on messages automatically generated by devices.
 3. The contentsystem of claim 1, wherein the first server is a content server, thesecond server is a tag server, the first device is a tagging device, andthe second device is a playback device.
 4. The content system of claim1, wherein the tag is a text element with a starting character.
 5. Thecontent system of claim 4, wherein the tag is a hash tag and thestarting character is a # character.
 6. The content system of claim 1,wherein the second server stores the tag with the URL in the searchabledatabase of tags.
 7. The content system of claim 1, wherein the searchquery is a search for a tag in the searchable database of tagsmaintained by the second server.
 8. The content system of claim 1,wherein the second server is further directed to maintain the searchabledatabase of tags as part of a service offered by a social group website.9. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second server is furtherdirected to maintain the searchable database of tags as part of anapplication that aggregates messages that comprise tags that describepieces of content and URLs that reference the locations of pieces ofcontent.
 10. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first device isfurther directed to generate the tag describing the piece of contentbased on information related to the piece of content.
 11. The contentsystem of claim 10, wherein the information related to the piece ofcontent comprises at least one of a filename, a piece of metadata, and acontent identifier.
 12. The content system of claim 1, wherein each tagincludes an identifier of a piece of content.
 13. The content system ofclaim 1, wherein the first server is configured to obtain pre-cachedportions of the pieces of content.
 14. The content system of claim 1,wherein the second device is further directed to automatically generatea second message describing the piece of content that includes the tagand the URL based upon the message automatically generated by the firstdevice.
 15. The content system of claim 1, wherein URL that references alocation of the piece of content is a shortened URL.
 16. The contentsystem of claim 1, wherein the tag describing the piece of content isautomatically generated from information related to media from a webpage.
 17. The content system of claim 1, wherein the automaticallygenerated message identifies a user of the first device.
 18. The contentsystem of claim 1, wherein the automatically generated messageidentifies a service on which the piece of content can be accessed. 19.The content system of claim 1, wherein the first device and the seconddevice are respectively a tagging device and a playback device within aplurality of tagging devices and playback devices.
 20. The contentsystem of claim 1, wherein the first device is further directed toupload the message to the second server.
 21. The content system of claim1, wherein the provided message comprises a content recommendation froma user of the first device.
 22. The content guide system of claim 21further comprising a remote server directed to: scan personalpreferences associated with the first device; scan existing and newlyadded pieces of content on the first server; and automatically generaterecommendation for a user of the first device on a periodic basis. 23.The content system of claim 1, wherein: the first server is furtherdirected to provide access to pieces of content comprising at least oneof an audio file, a video file, an image, and a multimedia file, and thefirst server is further directed to provide access to the pieces ofcontent along with metadata via at least one of download, and directconsumption via a web-browser.
 24. The content system of claim 1,wherein: the second server is further directed to maintaining a contentguide for the second device, the content guide comprising tagsdescribing pieces of content; and the second device is further directedto retrieve the content guide during search of the searchable databaseof tags.
 25. The content system of claim 24, wherein the second serveris further directed to add the tag provided by the first device to thecontent guide maintained for the second device.
 26. The content systemof claim 1, wherein the first server is further directed to pre-cachepieces of content to a particular device.
 27. The content system ofclaim 1, wherein the second server is further directed to direct aserver to pre-cache pieces of content based on tags received fromdevices.
 28. A method of accessing pieces of content distributedthroughout a network, the method comprising: accessing a piece ofcontent using a first device, wherein the piece of content is accessedfrom a first server; automatically generating a message describing thepiece of content accessible through the first server, wherein themessage comprises a tag describing the piece of content and a URL thatreferences a location of the piece of content; providing the generatedtag describing the piece of content with the URL that addresses thelocation of the piece of content to a second server using the firstdevice, wherein the second server maintains a searchable database oftags that describe content stored on the first server providing a searchquery to the second server using a second device in communication withthe first server and the second server through the network; receiving,using the second device, search results including the tag that describesthe piece of content and the URL referencing the location of the pieceof content from the searchable database of tags maintained by the secondserver; and retrieving and playing back the piece of content from thefirst server using the URL referencing the location of the piece ofcontent and using the second device.
 29. The method of claim 28, whereinthe tag is a hash tag and has a starting character that is a #character.
 30. The method of claim 28, wherein the search query is asearch for a tag in the searchable database of tags maintained by thesecond server.
 31. A content system comprising: a content serverdirected to provide access to pieces of content through a network, ahash tag server directed to maintain a searchable database of hash tagsthat reference pieces of content stored on the content server; a taggingdevice in communication with the content server and the hash tag serverthrough the network, wherein the tagging device is directed to:automatically generate a message describing a piece of contentaccessible through the content server, wherein the message comprises ahash tag describing the piece of content and a URL that references alocation of the piece of content; provide the hash tag describing thepiece of content with the URL that addresses the location of the pieceof content to the hash tag server; a playback device in communicationwith the content server and the hash tag server through the network,wherein the playback device is directed to: provide a search query tothe hash tag server; receive search results including the hash tag thatdescribes the piece of content and the URL referencing the location ofthe piece of content from the searchable database of hash tagsmaintained by the hash tag server; and retrieve and play back the pieceof content from the content server using the URL referencing thelocation of the piece of content.